


i see us in black and white (i promise that i love you)

by bellawritess



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Rating for Language, Songfic, cute shit, exists because i listened to black and white stripped by niall horan, for an hour and a half on my birthday, im pretty sure this doesnt need a single additional tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28233504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellawritess/pseuds/bellawritess
Summary: “Hey,” Luke whispers. Ashton’s eyes flutter open. “Can we get married?”
Relationships: Luke Hemmings/Ashton Irwin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	i see us in black and white (i promise that i love you)

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this on my birthday in august lol and then never posted it on ao3 but in a mild effort to hit a word count for the year and also to have all my writing in one place i am posting it now
> 
> anyway i did listen to black and white - stripped for.........a long time. so this came from that
> 
> retroactive shoutout to the club because that was Early Days for us and i felt the love then and i feel it now and i'm listening to ben platt so like i'm a little emo maybe but ANYWAY anyway here you go
> 
> [tumblr link :)](https://clumsyclifford.tumblr.com/post/625940525622640640/i-see-us-in-black-and-white-i-promise-that-i-love)
> 
> title from. you guessed it. black and white by niall horan. but if you want to be really accurate, it's from the stripped version (superior version)

“Hey,” Luke whispers. Ashton’s eyes flutter open. “Can we get married?”

Ashton stares at Luke through half-lidded eyes, obviously still in that middle stage between asleep and awake. “Hm?”

“I want to get married,” Luke says. Absently he traces his fingers down the lines of Ashton’s bare chest, and closes his eyes again. Ashton’s familiar in every way; Luke doesn’t need to see him.

“Uh, what?” Ashton says groggily. “I have some questions.”

“Okay.”

“Well, um, you’re nineteen. I’m not much older.”

Luke shrugs, flattening his palm against Ashton’s stomach and sighing happily. This, he thinks, is bliss. Nothing else in the world could ever feel like this does, and nothing else ever will. “Fine. Not now, then. But in the future.”

“Oh.” Ashton exhales. “Okay.”

“Okay, you’ll marry me?”

“Where is this coming from?”

“I don’t know,” Luke says, and opens his eyes, barely, to make a face at Ashton. “You don’t want to get married, is that it?”

“No, not at all, of course I do,” Ashton says. “It’s just — we’re young, you know? And this is a bit random. And — I don’t know what. I love you.”

“And I love you.”

“Yeah, but isn’t there, like…something else?”

“Something else?” Luke repeats. “No. There’s nothing else, Ash. If we love each other, there’s nothing else.”

There’s a silence, and Luke studies Ashton’s profile when he turns his head to look up at the ceiling, obviously thinking. There are few things Luke enjoys more than this kind of morning, lazy and easy and untouchable. The warmth of Ashton’s skip seeps into Luke’s fingertips while Luke watches him, the cut of his jaw, the way the light from the windows glances just so off his eyes, turning them clear. 

“Shouldn’t it be harder?” Ashton finally says, quietly, still looking up at the ceiling. “To decide you want to marry someone?”

“Not for me,” Luke says. Gently, he adds, “If it is for you, I’m not going to be upset.” That’s a white lie, but even if it hurts, Luke will understand. Ashton’s just got more walls, that’s all. Ashton’s been burned a couple times more. There are probably things he knows, or thinks he knows, about love and marriage, and Luke will respect that whether or not he agrees. If Ashton says he could never marry, Luke could learn to live with that.

Maybe it should scare him that he knows without a shred of doubt that he’d do anything for Ashton, hold the sky up on his back or deep dive without oxygen, but it doesn’t.

“It’s not.” Ashton’s voice is barely audible. He tilts his head on the pillow and meets Luke’s eyes. “That’s what I mean. I feel like I shouldn’t be so sure, but I am.”

Luke smiles. “It’s ‘cause you love me.”

“I’ve loved before.”

“Not like this.”

“Not like this,” Ashton agrees firmly, and leans in to give Luke a kiss, sweet and soft and sure.

“You can love me and not marry me,” Luke murmurs against his mouth.

“I’ll marry you,” Ashton breathes. “I will, really, whenever you fucking want, Luke.”

“Honest?”

“Honest. Whenever. Right now if you want, or tomorrow, or in a month, or in ten years.”

“Oh,” Luke says, and there’s a warmth in his chest, right under his sternum. “I’m surprised you agreed.”

“Me too,” Ashton says, “but then I thought about it and realized, like, this is it. You’re it. There’ll never be another. And I’d be the world’s biggest idiot to pass up the chance to lock down the most incredible guy I’ve ever met. I can’t believe you love me.”

“Of course I love you.”

“But how can you know you’ll _keep_ loving me?”

“That’s a dumb question,” Luke says. “Nobody _knows_ anything like that. I’ll decide to keep loving you. I love you now, and I’ll love you for the rest of my life, and if it takes work we’ll work at it, and if it’s easy, so much the better.”

Ashton makes a soft noise. “See, it’s when you say shit like that that makes me think this is all a hallucination. If fifteen-year-old Ashton could see us right now he’d never believe it.” Luke wrinkles his brow. “He didn’t think he’d ever be loved,” Ashton explains. “I didn’t, I mean.”

“And now?”

“And now…” Ashton trails off and gives Luke a smile that Luke wishes he could frame, or pocket. “I don’t know. I’m the luckiest bastard in the world.”

“Yeah you are,” Luke says, grinning.

Ashton huffs a laugh. “Shut up.” He kisses Luke’s nose. “What made you ask?”

“Ask what?”

“To marry me, you idiot, what have we been talking about for the last five minutes?”

“Oh,” Luke says. “I don’t know. I just woke up, and you were here, and…and I love you. That’s all.”

“That’s all? And you just decided you want to spend your whole life with me?”

“No,” Luke says. “I decided I wanted to be married. I’ve always known I want to spend my whole life with you.”

Ashton sucks in a breath. “You can’t have known that.”

“Just accept it, Ash,” Luke says sweetly. “I’ve always loved you, and I’ll always love you. From the day you rescued me like a white knight from those guys at the cinema.”

“God, that feels like forever ago,” Ashton murmurs. “We’re so much older. And so different.”

“Yeah,” Luke says, and then leaves it at that. There’s nothing else to say to it, really.

“I’m expecting a proper proposal when we really do get married, by the way,” Ashton says.

Luke smiles dopily and kisses Ashton, shrouded in the cozy blankets and the morning sunlight and the tingling feeling in his stomach and hands and feet. “Okay. Sure.”

“Can’t believe you woke me up to ask me to marry you,” Ashton mutters with a dry grin. “You’re unbelievable.”

Luke snuggles closer to Ashton. “Go back to sleep, then.”

Ashton yawns. “No, I’m up. I’ll make breakfast.”

“Husband material,” Luke says pointedly. Ashton shakes his head fondly and shimmies out of Luke’s grasp. 

“Takes one to know one.”

Ashton leaves, and Luke watches him go, and feels a tidal wave crash over him, the kind he wants to ride forever. Maybe their wedding will be small, or maybe a big, flashy affair. Maybe Ashton will wear white — he looks great in white — or maybe they’ll both wear black, or maybe neither of them will, or maybe they’ll both wear tank tops and ripped skinny jeans and exchange vows on a sandy, remote beach, or a traditional church in New South Wales, near home, or maybe they’ll never _properly_ get married, just buy each other rings and start calling each other “husband” — but it doesn’t really matter. 

Some things are just easy, and don’t need to be overthought. Ashton is one of those things. Luke smiles, sighs, and closes his eyes. Ashton will wake him for breakfast.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks and sorry if you thought this was a new fic hopefully i'll have one of those soon but first im gonna post the other tumblr-only fic i've got so. sorry again in advance lmfao anywayyy am on tumblr [@clumsyclifford](https://clumsyclifford.tumblr.com/) if you wanna come say hi, okay that's all bye now


End file.
